Downton Abbey
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
156 free Downton Abbey trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Downton Abbey trivia questions with answers. Are you a true Downton Abbey fan? Put your knowledge of the beloved period drama to the test with our comprehensive trivia quiz. From the Crawley family drama to the servant quarters scheming, discover just how well you really know this Emmy-winning series.
30 of 156 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01For which country-house film had Downton Abbey's creator already won a screenplay Oscar?
Gosford Park
Gosford Park won him the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, the film's only Academy Award, and proved such a turning point that he was wary when a producer asked him to return to country-house territory for television.
Q 02In Downton Abbey's first series, which unfamiliar idea prompts the Dowager Countess to ask what it is?
A weekend
A weekend: Matthew insists he can keep his job and learn the estate at the weekend, and Violet, for whom no day is a working day, asks what one is.
Q 03Which sport pits the Downton Abbey household against the village in an annual match shown in series three?
Cricket
Cricket: the match is interrupted when detectives arrive over a footman's complaint against the under-butler, and Robert persuades them it was all a misunderstanding.
Q 04Before becoming the heir presumptive to Downton Abbey, what was Matthew Crawley's profession?
Solicitor
Solicitor: Matthew practised law in Manchester and means to go on working after he moves to Downton, assuring Robert that there are plenty of hours in the day to learn the estate as well.
Q 05Which Crawley daughter ends up a journalist?
Lady Edith
Lady Edith begins with a published letter to a newspaper backing votes for women, is offered a weekly magazine column and later inherits the magazine's publishing company.
Q 06Downton Abbey's inheritance plot turns on which legal device tying the estate to the earl's title?
An entail
An entail ties Downton and Cora's fortune to the earldom, so Robert cannot leave the estate to his daughters and it passes instead to a distant cousin, Matthew Crawley.
Q 07Which real-world disaster sets the first season of Downton Abbey in motion?
The sinking of the RMS Titanic
The sinking of the RMS Titanic kills James Crawley, the heir presumptive, and his son Patrick, pushing the estate toward distant middle-class cousin Matthew.
Q 08Which actor plays the butler, Mr Carson?
Jim Carter
Jim Carter plays the butler Carson, a former music-hall performer, a past the upright Carson is deeply embarrassed by when his old stage partner Grigg resurfaces.
Q 09Which actress portrays the sharp-witted Dowager Countess Violet Crawley?
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith told 60 Minutes in 2013 that she had never watched the show, because she always sees things she would like to have done differently.
Q 10After actress Phyllis Logan's audition, the Downton housekeeper was rewritten as which nationality?
Scottish
Scottish: Logan expected to play the housekeeper with a northern English accent until those casting her heard her own voice and suggested making the character a Scot.
Q 11Who is the creator and main writer of the Downton Abbey series?
Julian Fellowes
Julian Fellowes created, wrote, and executive produced the acclaimed television series Downton Abbey.
Q 12Which Downton Abbey servant rises from footman to under-butler and finally succeeds Carson as butler?
Thomas Barrow
Thomas Barrow ends up running the house he once schemed in: as a footman in series one he tried to get Bates sacked by planting a stolen snuffbox in his room.
Q 13After his cousin Peter dies in Tangiers, Bertie Pelham unexpectedly inherits which title?
Marquess of Hexham
Bertie Pelham becomes Marquess of Hexham when his cousin Peter dies in Tangiers; a marquess outranks an earl, so Edith will outrank her own parents.
Q 21Downton Abbey's first series ends with Lord Grantham halting a garden party to announce what news?
War with Germany
War with Germany: Robert calls for silence on the lawn to break the news in August 1914, and the second series opens two years later with Matthew in the trenches.
Q 22Who becomes Lady Rose MacClare's husband?
Atticus Aldridge
Atticus Aldridge marries Rose in series five despite a plot by her own mother, who has him photographed with a hired woman in the hope that Rose will call the wedding off.
Q 23Which member of the downstairs staff marries Mr. Carson?
Mrs. Hughes
Mrs. Hughes accepts Carson's proposal, then refuses the reception he wants in Downton's great hall, unwilling to be a servant on her wedding day; they settle on the village schoolhouse.
Q 14Bates served alongside Lord Grantham as his batman in which conflict?
The Boer War
John Bates was Lord Grantham's batman in the Boer War, where a leg wound left him with the limp and cane he arrives at Downton with in series one.
Q 15Exterior shots of the village of Downton were filmed in which real English village?
Bampton
Bampton in Oxfordshire plays a village the scripts place far to the north in Yorkshire, with its St Mary's Church standing in for Downton's St Michael and All Angels.
Q 16What is the name of the cook at Downton Abbey, known for her strong personality?
Mrs. Patmore
Mrs. Patmore hides her failing eyesight in series one until she salts a pudding instead of sugaring it, and Robert sends her to a London eye specialist for surgery.
Q 17How does Lady Mary's first husband die on the very day their son George is born?
A car crash
Matthew Crawley dies in a car crash driving home from the hospital after meeting his newborn son George; the actor playing him had chosen to leave the series.
Q 18Which of the Crawley daughters marries the family chauffeur?
Lady Sybil
Lady Sybil first tries to elope to Gretna Green with Tom Branson, but her sisters catch them on the road and talk her into going home to win her parents' blessing.
Q 19Which lady's maid joins Cora in Downton Abbey's fourth series while hiding a conviction for theft?
Phyllis Baxter
Phyllis Baxter owes her post to the under-butler, who holds her past over her to make her spy; in series six it is she who raises the alarm in time when he tries to take his own life.
Q 20Which housemaid dreams of becoming a secretary and eventually leaves service to pursue it?
Gwen Dawson
Gwen Dawson buys a typewriter and takes a secret correspondence course; with the youngest Crawley daughter's help she lands a secretary's job at a telephone firm, and in series six she returns to Downton as a guest.
Q 24Which actress plays Daisy, the kitchen maid, in Downton Abbey?
Sophie McShera
Sophie McShera plays Daisy; she later crossed to the other side of the servant story as one of the stepsisters who make a drudge of the heroine in Disney's 2015 Cinderella.
Q 25Which doctor attends the Crawley family and the village throughout all six series?
Dr Clarkson
Dr Clarkson, played by David Robb, is the village doctor from series one onward; in series two he treats Matthew's spinal injury and judges, wrongly, that he will never walk again.
Q 26Which real London magazine gives the middle Crawley daughter a weekly column in Downton Abbey's third series?
The Sketch
The Sketch offers her the column after her letter to a newspaper on votes for women is printed; she falls for its married editor and, after his death, ends up owning the magazine.
Q 27In Downton Abbey, Cora miscarries after slipping on what item, left deliberately on the bathroom floor by her lady's maid?
A bar of soap
A bar of soap, placed out of spite by a maid who wrongly believed she was about to be replaced; Bates later whispers 'her ladyship's soap' to keep her in line.
Q 28At the end of series three, Tom Branson takes which estate job at Violet's suggestion?
Land agent
Land agent: when the long-serving agent Jarvis resigns after clashing with Matthew over the estate's mismanagement, Violet proposes Tom for the post.
Q 29Which Downton Abbey character is Matthew's widowed mother?
Isobel Crawley
Isobel Crawley, who has medical training of her own, has not been at Downton long before she pushes the village doctor into a risky new treatment that saves a local man dying of dropsy.
Q 30On which day is the Bateses' son born in the Downton Abbey finale?
New Year's Eve
Anna Bates gives birth to a son on New Year's Eve in the series finale; her waters break in Lady Mary's bedroom after Edith's wedding, and Mary insists she have the baby there.